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Guest column: Evangelical clergy say addressing climate change is pro-life
Guest column: Evangelical clergy say addressing climate change is pro-life
Guest column: Evangelical clergy say addressing climate change is pro-life
Posted: October 13, 2014 - 11:18am
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For us, being pro-life includes not only defending our unborn children but also the biblical mandate to care for all life.
While the threats may be different, the injunction to protect life is the same.
We are called to protect this seamless garment of life.
Toxins and other pollutants foul our water, air and soil, impacting the purity of life God intends.
FLORIDA IS GROUND ZERO
Children are especially vulnerable to many of these pollutants because their small bodies are still developing.
A few years ago, pro-life evangelicals spoke out on the impact of mercury on the unborn.
One in six children in the U.S. was born with too high levels of mercury in their blood.
Because of the efforts of pro-life evangelicals, the United States is taking a leadership role in reducing the impact of mercury on the unborn.
Another important issue is water.
As a recent USA Today op-ed put it, if you care about life, pay attention to what’s happening with water.
We believe climate change to be a profound pro-life issue.
And Florida is ground zero when it comes to climate change.
Cities across the state are already spending millions in taxpayer dollars to install new sea level pumps, bolster sea walls and protect from salt water intrusion.
While it is good to respond to current challenges, it is even more cost effective to spend funds ahead of time to prepare for present changes in the climate, including extreme weather events.
Let’s upgrade Florida’s water pumps and building codes today before we have to clean up a bigger mess tomorrow.
WE MUST BE GOOD STEWARDS
Given the dollars already being spent and the scale of the cost, if you care about taxpayer money and limited government, you should care about climate change.
We are also concerned about worsening air pollution under climate change.
Duval County alone has almost 18,000 cases of pediatric asthma.
That number would be dramatically lower if we were better stewards of God’s world.
When we see the present impacts, our pro-life ethic kicks in.
Let’s empower individuals to take the lead when it comes to entrepreneurial business solutions that create a cleaner environment.
We need to see climate not as an issue about politics or partisanship but as a moral concern.
God has given us all the tools to be good stewards of God’s creation.
TIME FOR A REAL PLAN
It’s time for Florida to come together to come up with a plan to address climate change.
The church in Florida is already starting to take the lead.
As the church starts to take on climate change more directly, it’s also time for clean businesses to take the lead.
The cost of solar has plummeted, yet Florida is still well behind where it could be when it comes to clean energy.
We need to do what we can to transition away from expensive fossil fuels and toward cheaper and healthier technologies.
These actions should include putting together a plan to play Florida’s part in achieving the Clean Power Plan.
And finding conservative solutions to addressing carbon pollution.
Our poor stewardship of God’s world is a reflection of how seriously we take God’s teaching.
That’s why creation-care remains integral to being pro-life.
■ The Rev. Joel Hunter is senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, Longwood, FL.
■ The Rev. Mitch Hescox is CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network.
■ Alexei Laushkin is vice president of the Evangelical Environmental Network.
Evangelical Clergy Say Addressing Climate Change Is Pro-Life
While the threats may be different, the injunction to protect life is the same.
We are called to protect this seamless garment of life.
Toxins and other pollutants foul our water, air and soil, impacting the purity of life God intends.
FLORIDA IS GROUND ZERO
Children are especially vulnerable to many of these pollutants because their small bodies are still developing.
A few years ago, pro-life evangelicals spoke out on the impact of mercury on the unborn.
One in six children in the U.S. was born with too high levels of mercury in their blood.
Because of the efforts of pro-life evangelicals, the United States is taking a leadership role in reducing the impact of mercury on the unborn.
Another important issue is water.
As a recent USA Today op-ed put it, if you care about life, pay attention to what’s happening with water.
We believe climate change to be a profound pro-life issue.
And Florida is ground zero when it comes to climate change.
Cities across the state are already spending millions in taxpayer dollars to install new sea level pumps, bolster sea walls and protect from salt water intrusion.
While it is good to respond to current challenges, it is even more cost effective to spend funds ahead of time to prepare for present changes in the climate, including extreme weather events.
Let’s upgrade Florida’s water pumps and building codes today before we have to clean up a bigger mess tomorrow.
WE MUST BE GOOD STEWARDS
Given the dollars already being spent and the scale of the cost, if you care about taxpayer money and limited government, you should care about climate change.
We are also concerned about worsening air pollution under climate change.
Duval County alone has almost 18,000 cases of pediatric asthma.
That number would be dramatically lower if we were better stewards of God’s world.
When we see the present impacts, our pro-life ethic kicks in.
Let’s empower individuals to take the lead when it comes to entrepreneurial business solutions that create a cleaner environment.
We need to see climate not as an issue about politics or partisanship but as a moral concern.
God has given us all the tools to be good stewards of God’s creation.
TIME FOR A REAL PLAN
It’s time for Florida to come together to come up with a plan to address climate change.
The church in Florida is already starting to take the lead.
As the church starts to take on climate change more directly, it’s also time for clean businesses to take the lead.
The cost of solar has plummeted, yet Florida is still well behind where it could be when it comes to clean energy.
We need to do what we can to transition away from expensive fossil fuels and toward cheaper and healthier technologies.
These actions should include putting together a plan to play Florida’s part in achieving the Clean Power Plan.
And finding conservative solutions to addressing carbon pollution.
Our poor stewardship of God’s world is a reflection of how seriously we take God’s teaching.
That’s why creation-care remains integral to being pro-life.
■ The Rev. Joel Hunter is senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, Longwood, FL.
■ The Rev. Mitch Hescox is CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network.
■ Alexei Laushkin is vice president of the Evangelical Environmental Network.
Faith leaders: Exempt religious groups from order barring LGBT bias in hiring
Faith leaders: Exempt religious groups from order barring LGBT bias in hiring
Fourteen prominent faith leaders — including some of President Obama’s closest advisers — want the White House to create a religious exemption from his planned executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against gays and lesbians in hiring.
A letter to the White House, sent Tuesday and made public Wednesday, includes the signatures of Michael Wear, faith director for Obama’s 2012 campaign; Stephen Schneck, a leader of Catholic outreach in 2012; and Florida megapastor Joel Hunter, whom Obama has described as a close spiritual counselor.
The letter reminds Obama of his own earlier faith-based opposition to same-sex marriage, as well as the government’s massive partnerships with faith-based social service groups that work on issues including housing, disaster relief and hunger.
“While the nation has undergone incredible social and legal change over the last decade, we still live in a nation with different beliefs about sexuality. We must find a way to respect diversity of opinion,” said the letter.
“An executive order that does not include a religious exemption will significantly and substantively hamper the work of some religious organizations that are best equipped to serve in common purpose with the federal government.,” it said. “When the capacity of religious organizations is limited, the common good suffers.”
Obama announced last month that he would sign an executive order barring discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. He did this after failed efforts to get through Congress the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would make it illegal under federal law to discriminate in the workplace — not just for contractors.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay equality advocacy group, nearly 90 percent of the Fortune 500 already ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. And while many see full gay legal equality as a foregone conclusion, this week’s decision at the Supreme Court — saying corporations may claim religious rights in denying workers contraception coverage — shows that legal tensions between religious liberty and rights around sexuality and reproduction are far from resolved.
The 14 signers of the letter include leaders of some of the country’s largest faith-based charities, notably Catholic Charities USA and World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals.
The signers said they supported the executive order — “we have great appreciation for your commitment to human dignity and justice, and we share those values with you” — but said an exemption is essential.
“Americans have always disagreed on important issues, but our ability to live with our diversity is part of what makes this country great, and it continues to be essential even in this 21st-century,” the letter said. “Without a robust religious exemption . . . this expansion of hiring rights will come at an unreasonable cost to the common good, national unity and religious freedom.”
None of the groups mentioned in the letter have explicitly said they would pull out of their partnerships with the White House if they do not get an exemption.
The White House declined to comment, but Schneck said faith groups remain in conversation with the administration and are “hopeful.”
Schneck, who runs the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at Catholic University, said he did not see any contradiction between supporting gay equality and the exemption.
“I think these things fit together pretty well,” he said. “Of all federal contracts, these [faith-based ones] are such a miniscule portion. The recognition of the divisive nature of these kinds of efforts [such as the executive order], it just makes perfect sense for the White House to give the faith-based groups time to work this out. It’s not that long ago when Obama himself was where these faith-based groups are now.”
Views are deeply divided. World Vision, a massive Christian relief nonprofit that received $179 million in 2013 from the government, announced a few months ago that it would allow employees to be in same-sex marriages and then immediately reversed itself after an outcry by donors.
Michelle Boorstein is the Post’s religion reporter, where she reports on the busy marketplace of American religion.
SOURCE:
Pastor Saeed's Case Raised in Iran
Christians and Climate Change
Dr. Joel C. Hunter talks about the visible impacts of climate change with Dr. Scott C. Hagen, director of CHAMPS Lab and professor at the University of Central Florida, and Rev. Mitch Hescox, president of The Evangelical Environmental Network.
Evangelicals in Florida turn to climate change and call on Gov. Scott to act
Evangelicals in Florida turn to climate change and call on Gov. Scott to act
Evangelicals in Florida turn to climate change and call on Gov. Scott to act
Evangelical leaders in Florida have taken on climate change as a cause and are trying to increase pressure on Gov. Rick Scott to take action, while criticizing Sen. Marco Rubio’s stance on the issue.
“He’s smarter than that,” Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland church in Longwood, said in an interview.
This evening, Hunter will moderate a discussion at his church on why Christians should care about climate change. Among the panelists is the Rev. Mich Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network, who wrote a letter to Rubio about his widely publicized comments doubting man’s contribution to climate change.
Hescox is also gathering signatures for a petition aimed at Scott.
“As Christians, we believe that God's grace empowers us to honestly confront the challenges we face and change for the better,” it reads. “We are failing to keep our air and water clean for our children, contributing to a changing climate that most hurts the world's poor, and putting Floridians at risk as temperatures and sea levels continue to rise. To meet these challenges, we need leaders who understand our duty to God’s creation and future generations. That's why we are calling on Gov. Rick Scott to create a plan to reduce carbon pollution and confront the impacts of a changing climate.”
Hunter, who is a spiritual advisor to President Obama, says he’s taken to urging congregants to do their part: Turning off lights that aren’t needed, setting air conditioning at a reasonable temperature, keeping car tires properly inflated.
He said he was neither panicked nor preoccupied with the issue. “But this is part of what I think is the moral responsibility of the church to lead in areas that can benefit and protect people.”
Asked about Rubio’s comments, he said: “There are certain aspects of this where qualified scientists could disagree, but not with the overwhelming conclusion. I don’t doubt his sincerity, but I understand his political constituency and so does he.”
Rubio lashed out at liberal critics by saying they won’t accept the settled science that life begins at conception.
“I”m pro life so everything about it, I’m in,” Hunter said. “But even if that’s true, two wrongs don’t make a right. It’s not like you can prove the validity of your stance by saying the other side has a wrong stand. That’s not logical.”
Joel Hunter launches multi-faith effort on climate change
Joel Hunter launches multi-faith effort on climate change
Pastor Joel Hunter announced Wednesday that he is launching an inter-faith initiative to raise awareness and action regarding climate change.
The iniative, called Blessed Tomorrow, brings together Muslim, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant faith leaders who have pledged to work with their congregations and communities in response to climate change.
“Faith leaders and their communities have been at the forefront of moving America forward throughout our nation’s history. From abolition to human rights, we have been there to answer our call to care for all of God’s creation. Blessed Tomorrow builds on that tradition by bringing together a diverse group of leaders from across the country who are committed to making an impact on one of the greatest moral imperatives of our time — climate change,” said Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, a Church Distributed in Longwood.
Blessed Tomorrow expands Hunter's advocacy among evangelicals that care of the planet is founded in the Scriptures, and not the exclusive domain of liberals and environmentalists.
Blessed Tomorrow provides simple, proven resources faith leaders can use to empower their members and communities. Congregations are urged to create a Path to Positive plan, which will guide them to be better stewards of God’s creation for the sake of future generations.
Learn more about how people of faith and congregations can create their own Path to Positive:(http://blessedtomorrow.org/path-to-positive)
Obama Welcomes Christian leaders to White House for Easter Prayer Breakfast
Pastor Joel C. Hunter offered the opening prayer at the fifth annual Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House.
Northland Film Builds Bridge Between Evangelicals and Environmentalists
SOURCE: Jeff Kunerth, Orlando Sentinel It's not easy turning an evangelical into an environmentalist.
But a new documentary from Northland, A Church Distributed aims to do just that by focusing on Scripture instead of science, faith instead of logic.
In "Our Father's World," Northland pastor Joel Hunter makes the argument to conservative Christians that saving energy, recycling waste and reducing your carbon footprint are all based on Scripture.
"The Bible provides a direct mandate to be caretakers of the garden," Hunter says in the documentary. "While creation still belongs to God, he has graciously entrusted it to our care and stewardship."
But the film also points out that evangelical Christians have abdicated the care of God's creation to the New Age and secular environmentalists. To become an evangelical environmentalist is to be associated with the tree-huggers, pagan nature worshippers and liberals.
"What has happened is the environmental movement has been generally championed by the liberal wing of the church, which appeals to logic and science," said Tony Campolo, a Pennsylvanian pastor who appears in the Northland film. "They make their case brilliantly, but they don't understand that evangelicals will not take seriously any case that is not based on the Bible."
In advocating for Bible-based environmentalism, Hunter gets pushback from both sides.
"We get shut out of the conversation with scientists because of our faith, but we also get a lot of flak from the fearful people in the religious community who think environmentalism is something pagan," Hunter said. "This is right where we want to be. If you aren't getting it from both sides, there's no need for a bridge."
Building a bridge of common ground between the faith and secular communities is starting to work, said the Rev. Andy Bell, executive director of Sunshine State Interfaith Power and Light, a St. Petersburg faith-based environmental group created in 2010.
"The secular environmentalists say, 'Welcome, we've been waiting for you guys,' '' said Bell, a United Methodist minister whose group includes Northland and 14 other Central Florida religious organizations.
It's a natural alliance because most people who care about saving the earth are spiritual, if not religious, said Frank Jackalone, senior organizing manager for the Sierra Club in St. Petersburg. The love of nature and the determination to prevent its destruction speak to the soul of mankind, he said.
"Most environmentalists see the protection of the planet as a spiritual expression no matter what their faith," Jackalone said.
What the evangelicals bring to the movement is more than just a spiritual love of nature, said Sister Patricia Siemen, a nun and environmental activist. It's a moral and ethical argument that comes with a religious conviction.
"Evangelical Christians bring a lot of passion and moral force to climate change," said Siemen, director of the Center for Earth Jurisprudence at Barry University School of Law in Orlando. "I think their leadership is very important. I hope they can go shoulder to shoulder with other environmentalists, whether spiritual or not."
In the documentary, Hunter makes the point that protecting the environment and saving Earth from destruction do not belong to one group or faith. He states that every major religion has tenets for taking care of Earth and all its living things.
"One of the things I love about living in this age is God is giving us problems so big no one faith community can really solve them," he said. "Therefore, we need to work together and we need to find common ground both with believers of other religions and with those who believe in no religion."
If faith leaders such as Hunter can marshal the legions of evangelicals to join the environmental movement, it could have a profound impact on climate change, Bell said.
"The game changer for climate change will be people of faith," he said. "The secular environmentalists were ahead of us because we dropped the ball. We let things get out of hand without raising the moral questions related to our ability to care for the Earth."
"Our Father's World" is available to view and download for free at ourfathersworldfilm.com.
jkunerth@tribune.com or 407-420-5392
What they believe
Evangelical environmentalists believe:
They will be held accountable by God if they harm or destroy the environment.
They are obligated by Scripture to be good stewards of Earth.
They are called by God to sacrifice, and conservation requires sacrifice.
They have a moral, ethical and religious responsibility to protect Earth.
Mankind does not own Earth, which belongs to God.
Sources: Our Father's World, Sentinel research
Copyright © 2013, Orlando Sentinel
WASHINGTON POST: "Report Argues for Lifting Ban on Politics From the Pulpit"
Even as polls show Americans broadly oppose electioneering from the pulpit, a new report by a group of faith leaders working closely with Capitol Hill argues for ending the decades-old ban on explicit clergy endorsements. The report being given Wednesday to Sen. Charles E. Grassley — the Iowa Republican whose office for years has been probing potential abuses by tax-exempt groups — comes as the ban has become a culture-war flashpoint.
More than 1,100 mostly conservative Christian pastors for the past few springs have been explicitly preaching politics — they call the annual event “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” — in an effort to lure the Internal Revenue Service into a court showdown. Meanwhile, groups that favor a strong church-state separation are going to court to demand that the IRS more aggressively enforce the ban that dates to 1954.
The report by officials of major denominations (including the Southern Baptist Convention and Assemblies of God) and large nonprofit organizations (including the Crusade for Christ and Esperanza, one of the country’s biggest Latino evangelical groups) argues that the ban chills free speech and violates the culture of people who see the weaving of faith and political expression as essential to their religious practice.
Forty-two percent of black Protestants and 37 percent of white evangelical Protestants say houses of worship should endorse candidates, according to the Pew Research Center. Among Americans overall, that figure has been in the 20s for a decade.
The report focuses on faith groups but would apply to secular 501c3 nonprofit organizations as well.
Some members of the Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations said lifting the ban was more about principles than pragmatism.
“I think there are some pockets of very conservative folks or very liberal folks who will use this in a partisan way. But when you become more specific [about candidates] you cut off a big portion of your congregation, and not a lot of religious leaders want to do that,” said Joel Hunter, leader of the Florida megachurch Northland and a sometime adviser to President Obama. “The issue is: Do they have the freedom to do it? For me it’s a First Amendment issue, a religious-freedom issue.” Hunter says he preaches on environmental and poverty issues and policies but not specific candidates.
Experts and even leaders of the commission agreed with Hunter that most clergy wouldn’t want to endorse from the pulpit — not because of the IRS but out of fear of alienating members at a time when young Americans in particular are fed up with the merger of partisan politics and religion. But, they say, the IRS’s spotty enforcement — the IRS doesn’t go after the Pulpit Freedom Sunday clergy, for example — and the complex tax language leaves many houses of worship afraid of even legal speech about particular measures or policies.
It’s unclear what will happen to the report, which was compiled by 14 Christian leaders, many of whom have worked in the past with Grassley on financial accountability issues.
The commission was advised by a much more religiously and politically diverse group of 66 faith leaders, a subset of which wrote an opposition paper arguing that the ban “has served to protect houses of worship in America from government regulation and from divisive partisan politics dividing the church communities.”
The group of 66 included leaders from all major branches of Judaism, major Muslim and Hindu groups as well as Methodists and Mormons, among others. It wasn’t clear how many of the 66 backed the proposal, but the commission chairman, Michael Batts, said support was “strong.”
A spokeswoman for Grassley said Tuesday that the senator “is weighing next steps.”
The report follows a controversial blowup over how the IRS chooses which groups to target for enforcement, and many are seeking change at the IRS. It also comes as Congress is seeking new revenue and potential tax code changes that would affect nonprofit organizations.
Efforts to drop the ban have been proposed before and failed.
The report also argues that the ban on the use of tax-deductible funds for political purposes — such as church coffers going to a campaign — should be maintained.
“We think this [report] would allow for respect without creating a monster — that churches could become in essence [political action committees],” said Batts, a leading expert on accounting for faith-based nonprofit organizations. “If they had money and could disburse it for political activities, that would be problematic, but this is just speech — saying what you believe.”
The report follows years of work by Grassley’s office and evangelical leaders on the issue of financial accountability.
A decade ago, Grassley began investigating whether several high-profile television ministries were violating the law by using tithes for things such as for-profit businesses, planes and jewelry. His office disappointed the most enthusiastic reformers in 2011 when it found no wrongdoing and asked a well-established council of evangelical oversight experts to make recommendations for self-governance.
That group, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, created the new commission. In December it made recommendations on the broad topic of financial accountability that Congress has not acted on. Members then turned to the separate issue of religious speech, which is the topic of the new report.
Some critics say it lacks credibility.
“This whole thing has a fox-guarding-the-henhouse feel to it and always has,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister who heads the group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Lynn said his group has brought multiple examples to the IRS of clergy preaching against votes for President Obama, and he said nothing was ever done.
Experts on religion in the United States say that even as Americans are becoming more turned off by partisan politics in religion, they are becoming more and more likely to see their faith as driving them to policy activism.
But there remains disagreement in the faith community about explicit endorsements. The commission is largely made up of conservative evangelicals, but a more liberal group called the Bright Lines Project also is looking into changes at the IRS and also proposed an exemption for political speech at houses of worship under certain circumstances.
By Michelle Boorstein, Source URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/report-argues-for-lifting-ban-on-politics-from-the-pulpit/2013/08/13/57aab53e-0449-11e3-88d6-d5795fab4637_story.html
